Successfull career, whether academic or otherwise

Highschool diploma

No minimal qualifications

Whenever I have a girlfriend I always feel ashamed to tell about her to my parents. I am also afraid of marriage. It seems like if it gets to this point the life will be over. I could never properly explain to any of my girls why is it I am afraid of these things.

Just recently I was in a banquet in strings conference and they told a joke about a guy and a girl breaking up because one was in string theory and the other was in loop quantum gravity. And the first thing I thought was "man, arent they lucky". In my case none of the girls I dated were physicists. The closest I got was a biochemist and even then she is not a theorist; she is very industry oriented as evidenced by the fact that eventually she chose to leave grad school (with a master) in favor of industry.

Now that this got my attention, I asked myself: what if I were to date a theoretical physicist with a ph.d., working on my level; would I have any of these fears? My honest answer is that I dont know; I have to see. But the fact that it is "conceivable" that I will NOT have these fears is pretty amaising, given that I could never imagine myself without these fears for the past few years, no matter how hard the girls pushed me to change. The reason why I would feel a lot more at ease dating a physicist is that I wont have to "step out of my life" the way I do now, will I? Even MARRYING a physicist wont be such a big of a leap.

Could it be that THIS is why none of the girls understand my fears? THEY would not date someone "far off on the left field" to begin with. I am the only one being desperate and going for girls I am not compatible with, simply because the girls I WANT to date (such as a math graduate student I ran onto few years ago) dont want to date me. So this explains why none of the girls I do date understand any of my fears. Perhaps they feel about me the same way as I would feel about theoretical physicist (they wont have been dating me if they didnt). And if I were to date a theoretical physicist, I would be A LOT more comfortable and marriage or anything of this kind would pretty much be non-event.

This brings me to asking you guys: would YOU personally ever date a non-physicist, or non-scientist? If most people in science community would NOT date the kind of girls I am dating, then I do in fact have a very good reason to worry!

My girlfriend is not a scientist. Personally, I don't have such criteria in mind; in fact, I doubt I'd like to date someone who does what I do, simply because conversations will then always be about work.

I think you need to step back, stop over-analysing people before you talk to them, and start dating someone you get on with and can have a laugh with.

It wouldn't occur to me to want, much less require, a woman who was conversant with what I did all day long. I'd probably prefer a girlfriend who represented a break from all that, who offered all the human experiences that daily work didn't provide.

God. I'd shoot myself if I had to date not just solely in the sciences, but solely a physicist!

What next? She has to have the same color hair as me? same shoe size? eat the same food? If physics is determining who you marry, you need to take a step back. I know there are some people who would disagree with me, but it's not THAT important.

My girlfriend is not a scientist. Personally, I don't have such criteria in mind; in fact, I doubt I'd like to date someone who does what I do, simply because conversations will then always be about work.

I think you need to step back, stop over-analysing people before you talk to them, and start dating someone you get on with and can have a laugh with.

This poll is broken.
16 voters only and... tons of votes. No need to count them but you clearly see that there are more than 16 votes on the graphic.
Also... I can't believe that it's so tight. Almost all people voted on all the choices. This is ridiculous, flawed.
P.S.:I voted for no minimal requirement, except the fact of her being a woman.

Whenever I have a girlfriend I always feel ashamed to tell about her to my parents. I am also afraid of marriage. It seems like if it gets to this point the life will be over. I could never properly explain to any of my girls why is it I am afraid of these things.
. . .
. . . But the fact that it is "conceivable" that I will NOT have these fears is pretty amaising, given that I could never imagine myself without these fears for the past few years, no matter how hard the girls pushed me to change. . . .

Could it be that THIS is why none of the girls understand my fears? THEY would not date someone "far off on the left field" to begin with. I am the only one being desperate and going for girls I am not compatible with, simply because the girls I WANT to date (such as a math graduate student I ran onto few years ago) dont want to date me. So this explains why none of the girls I do date understand any of my fears. . . .

. . . , then I do in fact have a very good reason to worry!

Consider dating a psychologist.

I once dated a woman who only had a GED. I was quite serious about her, but the relationship was complicated, and we went our separate ways.

Staff: Mentor

This poll is broken.
16 voters only and... tons of votes. No need to count them but you clearly see that there are more than 16 votes on the graphic.
Also... I can't believe that it's so tight. Almost all people voted on all the choices. This is ridiculous, flawed.
P.S.:I voted for no minimal requirement, except the fact of her being a woman.

The vote was set so that each member could vote for every category. That means each member can vote 15 times. So that is correct.

We all pick with different criteria. There are people who only care about... the more physical side of a relationship and therefore have no use for academic qualifications. Others want more intimacy and could feel better if they could discuss everyday work problems with their significant others. How can you meaningfully compare the choices of these two? What meaningful information can you gain from such a comparison or from the preferences of others seen in the poll?

Perhaps a better question would be "Would you date a non-scientist IF what you look for in a relationship is so-and-so"

We all pick with different criteria. There are people who only care about... the more physical side of a relationship and therefore have no use for academic qualifications. Others want more intimacy and could feel better if they could discuss everyday work problems with their significant others. How can you meaningfully compare the choices of these two? What meaningful information can you gain from such a comparison or from the preferences of others seen in the poll?

Perhaps a better question would be "Would you date a non-scientist IF what you look for in a relationship is so-and-so"

Well if that's the case, you have to agree that almost any comparison question is meaningless since people have different tastes and if the majority of them like something that can't help you to like it as well:uhh:

Well if that's the case, you have to agree that almost any comparison question is meaningless since people have different tastes and if the majority of them like something that can't help you to like it as well:uhh:

Well yes I agree. Although I don't see why MOST comparisons as you say are such comparisons. There are huge groups of people who have the same tastes. For example most men like women. And to back up my previous point, if I was gay, how would the fact that most men like women help me like them too?

What I was saying above is similar to having many solutions to the same problem. For example setting up a new desktop computer for office work. There are many solutions to this problem (computers to buy), and all can be compared more or less according to my overall office work experience. But aiming for a computer to play games is a different problem with different solutions which cannot be compared to solutions of the previous problem because they don't have the same goal.

the OP says:

"This brings me to asking you guys: would YOU personally ever date a non-physicist, or non-scientist? If most people in science community would NOT date the kind of girls I am dating, then I do in fact have a very good reason to worry!"

And what I'm suggesting is that maybe a better question is "would YOU personally ever date a non-physicist, or non-scientist IF what you look for in a relationship is what I look for as well?" Why would the OP care for the answers of people who ,for example, only want sex from a relationship since he obviously doesn't care only for that?

Your significant other doesn't need to understand what you do for a living so long as he/she respects it. I'm married to a computer programmer, and for years I didn't understand much of what he does, but I knew enough to be able to listen to him tell me about his day or a project he was working on because he is good at breaking things down to a level of someone who doesn't do what he does.

He doesn't understand all the math I'm studying, but it's not an issue.